The Psychiatrist
by Moment For Life
Summary: Sixteen years after Titanic, Caledon Hockley needs a little help.


Sixteen years...

It had been that long.

When he looked in the mirror, he felt the same young man that he had once been. He had been handsome, once. Grey was a colour he hadn't dreamt of and now it peppered his hair. He couldn't place the exact time he had first noticed it but it was there. His eyes had once been alive, beaming and now, as they were lined were wrinkles, he realised just how cruel time really was.

Caledon Hockley was forty-five years old. Not old by any means but he knew just littered his life had been with such loss and misfortune that it almost made him wish that he was no longer on this earth. In the gold framed mirror, he was faced with his own reflection. His hair was styled wonderfully, his suit pressed and outwardly, he was a man of outstanding character, with a loving wife and a marriage which had lasted fourteen years which had created a picture-perfect family; a daughter and two sons. Each of them stood tall, beautiful and proud of their family. He should be proud of them, of his achievements but yet he wasn't. Inwardly, he had fought a battle since 1912. Something which had started off small; a cruel loss but something he had been young enough to get over but he never had.

His fiancée had not only betrayed him in all ways possible; she had run away with a man a decade younger than him, but then for the best part of fifteen years he had believed her to be dead. He had spent those years mourning...drinking...descending, until a business trip to New York City had taken him to a theatre with a colleague...there she had been. As bright as the sun. She had married another man...she had children. Four of them. Beautiful and sparkling little lives which she had created. Not with Dawson but with another. He had been tanned, tall and handsome. Caledon Hockley had emptied his stomach numerous times over the course of that night and then the next morning. Drinking hard liquor for days on end had done nothing to help and so he had shut himself away in hotel room after hotel room just thinking and letting everything which had built up over the last sixteen years teem out of every pore.

 _She had lived..._

 _And yet, he had mourned._

His hands shook. His lips were dry. His stomach twisted and turned, but that wasn't a new feeling. His cheeks were hollow and he struggled to remember the last time he had eaten a good meal. Food wasn't the current nourishment of his choice. A low grumble reminded him that he must eat something today even if it didn't remain in his stomach. The shakes had started from the withdrawals of the whiskey but he promised himself that if he was going to do this, then he would at least do it sober. He drank to stem the pain, to suppress every emotion which he had kept bottled up for so long.

 _You're a foolish mess._ He wished to shout to himself but, no words said aloud would change the internal war which he fought with himself every day. His breathing was shallow. This was the moment of truth. The one thing which he said he would never do. He half wanted to laugh at his own stupidity but that wouldn't do anything either.

He had been given the chance all of those years ago to love her, to want her and to possess every inch of her and yet, he had never quite been the husband of choice. He had wanted her body and soul and he never once got the chance. At first, she had loved him, she had said as much but he knew that his behaviour afterwards had become supressing...challenging and she had found love elsewhere.

Cal squeezed his eyes closed, feeling his head throb. It was suddenly a hundred degrees in the office and he couldn't see, or breath properly. He tugged at his collar and a cough sounded at his throat, coming out as a choke. His heart started to race and his eyes were red, the veins almost popping out.

''Are you all right, sir?''

A young secretary came to his aid.

''Yes. Just water, please.'' He choked out and she nodded, running to the kitchen to fetch the paying customer a glass of iced water.

He took a seat upon the upholstered leather sofa. The black, blank office door was closed. He tapped his fingers impatiently against the arm of the chair. His breathing was quicker and he became dizzy. The memories were flying at him, he could see her...he could feel everything. He tapped his hands against his pockets, he had fetched no liquor with him. He would have to endure this. He would have to feel the pain. His eyes darted about the room and then back to the door, it was still closed. His appointment was a three p.m. The clock on the wall started he had about three minutes to wait. He had been here seven minutes. He glanced at his own pocket watch. It matched the one on the wall. Damnit! The seconds ticked...the clock was loud...tick tock. He felt the sweat upon his forehead and he clasped onto a handkerchief before using it to mop his face just as the secretary returned with a glass of water.

''Here you go, sir.''

''Thank you.''

He took it from her with fumbling and shaky hands to down the entire lot like a thirsty dog on a hot summer day. He felt the excess trickle down his chin to his collar and he didn't wipe it away. What was the use? It cooled him down and manners wouldn't matter in this place. He was already as low as the rest of them.

''May I have another?''

''Yes, of course.''

The secretary went again. He tried to concentrate on her. She was pretty. A lovely, lithe figure with small curves. He sighed. Who was he kidding! What interest in other women would he have when his own wife was the most stunning woman to walk this earth and yet their lovemaking had ceased years ago.

Perhaps he needed a mistress. The thought ticked his head. He hadn't been to bed with another woman in years...ten years or perhaps twelve. No, he had no interest.

He thought back to the first night he had met Rose Dewitt Bukater and how the curves of her hip and the luscious ruby lips had attracted him to her right there and then. His fingers tapped louder against the arm and his right leg shook, trembling with impatience as his head began to fill with thoughts. This was it now; once she was there then she wouldn't leave for a long time. No, think of other things...

His eyes darted about. The telephone sounded shrill and the secretary rushed along to hand the glass of water to him. He took it and again necked the entirety as the young woman rushed to answer the telephone. He took notice of her and how she spoke. It was a low tone, breathy. He blinked his eyes as she seemed to feel his eyes on her. He knew it was rude and that he should remove them but he couldn't.

What was it about him that had this obsession? He needed answers. Now.

He exhaled loudly as he placed the glass on the end table beside him. One-minute left before his appointment. In his head, he counted the seconds with closed eyes.. _.fifty-nine, fifty-eight..._

He was lost after that. He could see her in his mind, dancing and loving her husband. He held her closely. The way Dawson had...the way that he would have, if only they could have married.

He clutched his own head and wished that he could remove his own brain. At least then she wouldn't haunt him so. His frustration had drained him for years and now, it had come to a full head. He was ready to beat these demons he had to, or he would wind up in the damned mental institute and that wasn't a place for a man of his name.

No, so he had taken a slightly better route. One which he had hoped would create a new life for him. For years he had toyed with the idea. He knew of people who had come here on the sly. The men who paid to be de-clustered of their demons. The office was a place for mad men, he had decided from the second he walked through the damned door.

''Thirty seconds.'' He whispered to himself. ''Twenty-nine-''

He opened his eyes. A couple of plants sat either side of the door in ceramic pots. They seemed to wilt to the ground. A fitting treat for those who were mentally challenged. He wanted to laugh. Of course, he wasn't amongst them. He was merely here to chatter, to let some things off his chest. He didn't need psychiatric help or those pills to help calm a person or return their spirits. He was a happy man, just simply lost. His heart started to calm a little. He was lost...

The images of her seemed to disappear for a second or two.

''Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen...'' He continued to count down the seconds as he clutched the cool empty glass which had once contained his water.

He watched as the hand of the clock jumped, each second after the other as it made its way to the number twelve. He counted a few more, with his eyes burning into the door willing it to open. When it did, he jumped. His eyes burning from his lack of blinking and it was there that Doctor Thompson came face to face with his patient; Caledon Hockley.

Cal didn't even take in his appearance. He sprang to his seat like a dog about to take a long walk. He seemed enthusiastic. Doctor Thompson stepped forward.

''Mr. Hockley is it?''

''Yes.'' He wiped his clammy hands upon his smart trousers. He had never done something so revolting and yet, after all the business deals he had made and all of the hands he had shook. This one would be the worst in his life.

''Good. I'm Dr Thompson.''

He extended his arm; a gentleman to a psychiatrist. He shook it as firmly and calmly as he could.

'' Come on in. Don't look so terrified.''

Cal stopped half way inside the door.

''Excuse me?''

''You appear to be scared, sir. But, please, relax.''

If the man before him was any other person he would have given them a piece of his very sharp mind, but, he decided in that moment that he wasn't scared. Of course, he had never been afraid in his life.

 _I'm just lost..._ Were the words which he repeated over and over in his own head as he closed the door.


End file.
